Maradona dives head first in to his new job

Dubai'sThe Nationalreports that Diego Maradona took his first training session with club side Al Wasl this week and while he put the team through their paces, he also showed them some of the old magic – taking a spectacularly theatrical dive – as the side learnt all of the old masters tricks.

The training session was held late at night but attracted over 100 fans and a crowd of about 20 photographers. He posed for pictures and signed several autographs, including, reports The National "an Argentina shirt a fan secured from a holiday to Buenos Aires."

"Amigo! Amigo!" and "Diego! Diego! Diego! Diego Maradona!" went the shouts from fans but he is unlikely to have an easy ride for the forthcoming season. Gulfnews.com notes that "barely a month went by last season without a managerial sacking — there were 13 in all. Quick tempers and short attention spans can often equal disaster for coaches. Like riding a bucking bronco, the local and international press will focus on Maradona's tenure, waiting for that all-important explosion."

From a historical perspective the outlook is grim with Gulfnews pointing out that "George Weah, Phillip Cocu, Josep Guardiola, [Fabio] Cannavaro, Gabriel Batistuta and Romário all passed through this region before retirement" and that the region has "earned a reputation like Major League Soccer as a footballer's retirement home. Ronald de Boer even called it a graveyard."

But, as yet, the maestro looks happy with his lot. He stood, characteristically, hands on hips and tummy out largely throughout training, surveying his minions. However after a moment of passing and losing the ball he took a fall worthy of the finest thespian, clutching his shins before restanding with a huge impish grin on his face to receive some high-fives from the team.

They have much to learn from him and he will be hoping it all translates into results if his sojourn in the Middle East is not to end messily.

ARGENTINA

Football fight causes referee to take flight

There was a spot of bother back in Diego's homeland last week when a fifth division match between Union San Guillermo and Atlético Tostado descended almost literally into farce when the players turned on the referee.

With the players unhappy after a decision, the man in the middle received a chest-first sumo slam and as words were exchanged fists also started flying and one aggrieved player launched a midriff-high kung-fu kick to his lower back.

The assistant referees joined in, only for the coaches to do the same. At which point these flair ups usually dissipate into ineffectual flailing of the handbag variety. But one of the linesmen had further inflamed things and was pursued off the pitch, out of the gate and down the road, Keystone Kops-style by angry players. Heading off into the middle distance he made good his escape (now also pursued by angry fans) by climbing a huge chain-link fence.

USA

Star Wars and the San Francisco Giants

Something for Premier League clubs to ponder in terms of added value for fans as the San Francisco Giants baseball team offer a special Star Wars-themed day for their match against the Arizona Diamondbacks on 4 September.

Not only featuring a seat in the special Star Wars section and access to the pre-game costume party, tickets also include two special treats.

The first is the Brian Wilson in carbonite statue. Wilson is the bearded and eccentric pitcher for the Giants and the statue is three sided. One side features the iconic Han Solo in carbonite pose and the second with Wilson, in his trademark post-save celebration pose – crossed arms, left hand in his glove and right hand underneath pointing with the index finger while looking at the sky – which is also frozen in carbonite like the unfortunate Captain Solo. The third has graphics celebrating the Giants and Star Wars.

All of which beats an overpriced shirt hands down, but better still, after the game the Giants will be screening The Empire Strikes Back, the best of the original three (good) Star Wars movies and from which all that freezing in carbonite took place.

Patriots' Ochocinco seeks room, internet, Xbox

The equally eccentric Chad Ochocinco, the wide receiver who signed with NFL side the New England Patriots last month, has been settling into his new home of Boston in his own inimitable fashion.

The player, who was born Chad Javon Johnson, and changed his name to Ochocinco in 2008 – "eight five" his jersey number in Spanish and in honour of Hispanic heritage month – is also a keen twitterer, has appeared on Dancing with the Stars, reality TV shows, has his own app and has participated in Major League Soccer and even bull riding.

But he told ESPN that moving to a new city requires new tactics. "I'm going to do something different, I'm actually going to stay with a fan for the first two, three weeks of the season," he said. "That should be fun, until I get myself acclimated and learn my way around."

However, it seems he has already been investigating Boston: "The way I learn a new city is by travelling out, adventuring out, getting lost on purpose," he said. "This past weekend, I was a little frustrated because I was lost for about an hour, an hour and 30 minutes and I couldn't get where I needed to. [But] that's it. Boston, or actually heaven, has been good."

There has been no lucky fan named by the player as of yet but Ochocinco does have one or two needs that must be met. "I'm not sure how it's going to work, but they have to have [the] internet. They have to have [an] Xbox," he said. "That's about it."

When asked if the plan was serious, he replied: "Have I ever lied to you before?" And in response to the reminder that there were some "crazy" fans out there he simply said: "I rode a bull."

USA

Taking the piste

There was no such lightheartedness at the New York Post who were unsurprisingly harsh on the member of the US Ski team who urinated on an 11-year-old girl during a flight back from training camp.

Robert "Sandy" Vietze, one of 75 elite skiers in the US, has been bumped from the county's ski team developmental roster after the incident, terrible in itself but in which he really could not have chosen a victim more likely to raise the hackles of the Post.

The girl was flying with her sister and cancer-stricken father on a trip to see her grandmother on eastern Long Island for the first time since his diagnosis. Soon after takeoff, Vietze, who had been drinking, stumbled from his seat and "emptied his bladder onto the girl, who was briefly left alone while her dad and sister were in restrooms."

"I was drunk and I did not realise I was pissing on her leg," Vietze later told the police. The girl's father, a stage four cancer patient, caught him midstream and tried to "wipe him out" reported the paper. "Fuck that kid. I don't want him near my family," he yelled. The skier slurred that he had suffered "an accident," reported another passenger.

"He's a very nice boy, one of the nicest, most respectable young people I've ever met," said a neighbour, Colin Seaman. "It would be very hard for me to believe that this even happened."

But the Post was having none of it. "He probably just pissed away his Olympic dreams," it opened, before referring to him as "The leaky loser" who "expressed no remorse outside his family's palatial Vermont home, where he ignored questions about the incident and showed no interest in apologising to his victim."